


nights in the archives

by fricklefracklefloof



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Worms (The Magnus Archives), Fluff, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, No beta we kayak like Tim, Season/Series 01, again cannot Believe this is a tag, cannot Believe they have a tag like this, i tagged this as jonmartin but there's hardly any romantic stuff going on sorry they're awkward, ish, jon tries but he's awkward, pining but jon's stupid about it, this is my first tma fic be kind also i'm not caught up on season 5 yet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2020-12-11
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:41:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28002579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fricklefracklefloof/pseuds/fricklefracklefloof
Summary: Jon likes when the archives are dead silent. When it's just him, alone, staying up into the wee hours of the morning finishing up work that he can't seem to put down no matter how much his coworkers nag him about it. That is, until Martin is forced to move in, which wouldn't be too much of a big deal for Jon if he didn't start having nightmares.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 7
Kudos: 120





	nights in the archives

**Author's Note:**

> hello tma fandom! i offer you baby's first podcast/tma fic because i'm hopelessly fixated on this fucking podcast and i can't think about anything else. no i'm not even caught up yet (finishing up season 5!). no i don't care. anyways hello i hope you enjoy this

The archives were blissfully quiet at night.

For some reason, the latest hours of the night, with only the company of himself, seemed to be the time when Jon most enjoyed working. He didn’t have Elias around to tell him he was being rude to statement givers (that was on them, really; it wasn’t Jon’s fault people were so sensitive), or Tim to annoy him, or Sasha to ask him about the pronunciation of “calliope”, or Martin to tell him nonsense about “taking care of himself” (as if that was something important).

Well. Martin was around. But he was supposed to be asleep in the bed in the archives that Jon had lent him. Jon had expected him to be a horrible annoyance, but once everyone else had left Martin had surprisingly left him alone, for the most part.

Fine by him. The more Jon forgot that Martin was there, the better.

The only downside to staying up late working in the archives was that it did eventually start to get to Jon, no matter how much he tried to ignore it. He could hardly remember what he was reading, something about… incidences with bones? It felt like there were rocks weighing down his eyelids, threatening to make them close.

Jesus. He needed more coffee.

Coffee, and then he could work properly again. Forcing his eyes to stay open, Jon dragged himself out of his office and down the hall to the blessed archive coffee machine that he’d paid so many visits to.

He passed the room where he used to spend long nights in, the one that was now being occupied by an exiled Martin, and cast it an almost mournful glance.

No. He didn’t need that room. If Jon really was staying up so late that he needed to sleep in the archives, he might as well stay up all night anyways. Besides, at least Jon had a home to return to.

Still, instead of heading over to give himself his third refill of coffee for the night, Jon stopped by the door.

He could have sworn he’d heard something. Had Prentiss finally found a way to break into the archives? Was she looking for him? Martin?

It sounded like the noise had come from the room. Jon had made sure it was the most secure place in the archives, but he supposed anything could happen. Narrowly avoiding a worm carcass (he couldn’t count how many times he’d accidentally stepped on one in the institute; it was disgusting), Jon pressed his ear to the door.

No, it wasn’t the sound of Jane Prentiss exploding into the archives with her pack of worms. At least, he didn’t think. It sounded more like… whimpering. Crying, even.

Jon had hardly slept this week. Maybe he was hearing things now. God, the way the others would nag him if they found out: _Sleep, Jon, or you’ll hear weird things at night!_ That was the last thing he needed right now.

“Why are you here? Please don’t… I’m sorry I messed up.”

The few words Jon could make out sounded like Martin. Probably not some kind of auditory hallucination, at least Jon hoped, though he had no idea why Martin was up, too, at this ungodly hour previously reserved only for a tired archivist.

Maybe Prentiss was in there. Maybe she was threatening him. Heart racing, Jon forced open the door. Jon knew he couldn’t have known, but some part of him felt partially responsible for Martin’s disappearance. He couldn’t let something like that happen again.

The room was empty, save for Martin’s huddled form under the covers. There was a fire extinguisher (where the hell did he get that?) on the ground by the bed, and a corkscrew (again, what the hell) by his pillow.

Well, certainly no one had broken in, to Jon’s relief. Still, Martin was trembling like Jane Prentiss had found her way inside the archives after all. He was muttering about worms, something about his mother…

When Martin had burst into Jon’s office a few weeks ago with worms squirming in his hands to give his hurried statement about what had happened at his flat, Jon couldn’t bring himself to snap at him somehow, not like he usually would. He’d gotten this awful feeling in his chest, almost like… pity. 

Martin was annoyingly cowardly about things, sure, but Jon had never wanted to see him distressed like that again. It had terrified him in some awful way, like he couldn’t bear to see Martin—cheery, insufferably sweet Martin—so threatened like that. Jon didn’t realize how little he had meant it when he wished death upon Martin until his assistant actually brushed up against it himself.

That annoying pity feeling was back now, just as bad as before, and Jon found himself making his way over to the bed to—what, comfort him? He didn’t know. He just wanted Martin to stop looking like that, stop whimpering helplessly like everything was going wrong and it was all his fault.

“Martin. _Martin!_ ”

His coworker stirred awake.  
  


“Jon,” he said breathlessly, in a voice even smaller than usual, like he’d just brushed up with death instead of being sound asleep. “What are you… oh my god, where is it?” Jon could hear him fumbling in the dark for something.

“What?”

“The fire extinguisher.”

Oh. “It’s right here,” Jon sighed, picking it up off the ground and handing it to Martin. “Where the hell did you get something like that?”

“I stole it.”

“Jesus, why?”

“Because—well—I don’t know!” Martin sputtered. “Prentiss could come in here at any moment, and there’s— _worms_ all over the archives. I know they can’t really get in here, but—sometimes it feels like they’re crawling all over me.”

“I see.” Jon didn’t know how that made him feel.

Jon could make out Martin shifting awkwardly in the dark. “Were you… did you need something?”

“You were talking in your sleep. I thought—well.”

“Oh. Oh god, Jon, I’m sorry if I disturbed you—”

“It’s fine.”

“Sorry,” Martin said again.

“It’s fine. Do you… you’ve been having nightmares?”

Martin clearly sounded taken aback by this question. “Oh. Well, yes, but it’s no big deal, really…”

“This happens every night?”

“Maybe? I mean, I-I don’t really keep track…”

“I’m…” Jon didn’t know how he was supposed to say this. He sat down awkwardly on the other side of the bed, struggling to make out Martin’s face in the dark. “I’m sorry.” Clearly he’d been badly shaken up by all of this, more than Jon had really realized. Of _course_ he would be traumatized, no one liked worms or feeling trapped or being chased by a woman who was barely human, and Jon had seen more than enough statements made by people whose experiences followed them for the rest of their lives, but he hadn’t really understood the effects until now. It wasn’t even really the nightmares, because sure, everyone had nightmares. It was the fact that Martin looked like he was truly going to die if he didn’t have that damned fire extinguisher and corkscrew right next to him.

“Oh. I…” And then Jon heard Martin struggle for words like he had done the first time Jon had offered up the room in the archives for him to stay in, as if he couldn’t even process what he had just heard. “It’s alright. It’s—not your fault.”

Well, perhaps Martin wouldn’t be in this situation if he hadn’t felt pressured by Jon to collect more information. But that wasn’t worth dwelling on. God, how did you comfort people in these situations? Jon just hated hearing the tremble in Martin’s voice; he wanted more than anything to hear it go away. “Would it help to… talk about it?” Make a statement. Because that was all he knew now.

“I suppose,” Martin said softly. “I don’t—I just remember I was with my mum, and then suddenly the worms were everywhere, and they were coming for her, and—” The trembling in his voice was getting worse, and Jon almost regretted bringing it up.

“It’s okay,” Jon said hurriedly, because he had no idea what else to say.

But Martin took a breath, and continued. “Sorry. I don’t know, it’s just one moment everything was fine and then they—they all swarmed the place. Covering my house, the cupboards, the chairs, my mum’s bed… and they were eating her, god it was _horrible…_ ” 

Jon could just barely register Martin’s face in the dark, but he was sure he could picture his familiar terrified expression now, that face he made when he looked like he was trying to hold back tears. It used to disgust him, but now it just filled him with that painful pity feeling in his chest all over again.

“And Jane Prentiss looked at me, with those _awful holes_ all over body, and she said… she said…” He took another shuddering breath. “She said it was my fault. That I brought her here to hurt my mum. She said I’d forgotten something. I’m always… I’m always forgetting things.”

Well, he wasn’t wrong there. Still, Jon found himself saying, “It’s not your fault.”

“Is it, though? Because I just feel like we wouldn’t be having this problem if it weren’t for me. There’s worm carcasses in the hallways, you guys always have to worry about what’s outside the archives… If I hadn’t been so _stupid_ , none of this would have happened.”

“That’s on her, then,” Jon said, with a sudden flash of indignance that he didn’t know he had in him. “You couldn’t have known. Prentiss probably would have gotten to us eventually.”

“I guess so,” Martin mumbled. “I just—I don’t want anyone else to get hurt. What if she does find a way to get in? What if she’s just toying with us like she was with me?”

“We’ll make sure that doesn’t happen,” Jon said. 

“Thank you.”

They were quiet for an awkward moment. Jon was suddenly aware of how uncomfortably close he was to Martin, sitting on the bed with him like that.

“Anyways,” Jon began. “I was going to… make some coffee?”

“You should get some sleep,” Martin advised softly. 

“I…” Jon wanted to protest, he wanted to finish reading about those bones, but he felt a yawn beginning to form and he realized how difficult it was going to be for him to sit up. He didn’t even know how he was going to get himself home. “I’ll head out, if it gets you to sleep.” No promises about sleeping himself. He supposed he would try.

“I will.” Jon heard him turn over, shifting back under the covers. “Goodnight, Jon.”

“...Yes.” With a pang, he realized Martin had already fallen asleep. “‘Night, Martin.”

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this in comic sans


End file.
